Students journey into woods for paintball war, new experience

Dashing through the woods, finding a dip in the ground for a place to crouch and firing repeatedly at an exposed opponent jacked up all North Idaho College students’ heart rates who participated in a NIC Rec. Sports paintball event near Fernan Lake in Coeur d’Alene April 26.

I participated too. I just don’t think I shot anybody, except for one of the neutral Sentinel photographers and possibly the referee/game coordinator. I think I hit at least one of them once, or maybe even a few times.

Oops.

“I think people were so excited to be there and that makes me excited to offer it,” said NIC Rec. Sports coordinator Jessica Johanson.

Once there, the students played a few games of capture the flag.

Some of the participants had some experience while others were paintballing for the first time.

“I’ve always wanted to go paintballing and I usually never had the opportunity because I don’t have gear,” said Reannon Riley, 18, Coeur d’Alene, general studies. “All my friends have gear, but it’s just their gear and then they go with people that have gear, so I thought it was a good opportunity.”

Riley said when she was shot, she was surprised at how little it hurt.

“It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would,” Riley said. “I’ve been shot before and it hurt a lot then, but it didn’t hurt this time probably because of adrenaline.”

Tyson Lopez, 19, outdoor leadership, Ririe, Idaho, also added that he had never legitimately been paintballing until a week and a half ago.

“I’ve never been paintballing so I decided, why not? Go for it,” Lopez said.

Lopez, like Riley, had been shot by a paintball before but was a little surprised by the minimal pain level that resulted after getting hit.

After the majority of the time spent playing capture the flag, the last round students split up into groups of three to five to form teams. The teams had to stay together while attacking the other teams in the game.

If a teammate got shot, he or she would have to crawl under another team member’s legs to get revived and continue playing.

Riley said she enjoyed playing this game but it was difficult too because she and her teammate kept getting shot.

“I would get shot and then I would have to go under his (Lopez’s) legs,” Riley said. “And then while I was going under his legs, he would get shot and we’d have to switch every time we would do that. He would get shot or I would get shot, and then we just surrendered.”